2 Corinthians 3:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared— The sense of St. Paul here is plainly this: that he needed no letters of commendation to them; but that their conversion, and the gospel written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of God in the tables of their hearts, by his ministry, and not in tables of stone; was as clear an evidence and testimony to them of his mission from Christ, as the law written in tables of stone was an evidence of Moses's mission: so that he [St. Paul] needed no other recommendation. This is what we are to understand by the verse; unless we will make the tables of stone to have no signification here. But to say, as he does, that the Corinthians, being written upon in their hearts, not with ink, but with the Spirit of God, by his instrumentality, was Christ's commendatory letter of him.—This being a pretty bold expression, liable to the exception of the captious part of the Corinthians, to obviate all imputation of vanity or vain-glory herein, he immediately subjoins what follows in the next verse.

2 Corinthians 3:3

3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.